$10 million in restitution ordered in mortgage fraud

By Chris Olwell / The News Herald

Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 03:44 PM.

Some of the loans the defendants secured were private, such as the $95,000 Marie Beamer loaned the group on the advice of her real estate agent. Beamer was 81 when she testified in May to losing her retirement savings when she sold her Bay Point home to the group in 2006.

Aside from Beamer and another couple who agreed to a private loan of more than $100,000, the victims in the case are primarily huge lenders like Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase.

PANAMA CITY — More than five years after bilking victims out of their credit scores and banks out of millions of dollars, five men and women convicted of fraud have been ordered to pay the money back.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Smoak Tuesday entered a restitution order for more than $10 million against Maurice Bates, 41, Miami; Jill Beth Newman Zuravel, 47, Boynton Beach; Alan Jay Nathan, 60, Boca Raton; Meredith Lelann King 38, Destin; and Joann V. Walter, 56, Parkland. They all were convicted last year of conspiring to commit wire fraud for their role in an “equity-skim” fraud scheme.

The conspirators falsified documents in order to secure one or more loans to buy 10 properties in Panama City and Panama CityBeach in 2005 and 2006. All 10 properties have been foreclosed on or are in foreclosure proceedings.

“This case is a stark reminder of the lengths to which greed-motivated criminal minds will go,” U.S. Attorney Pamela Marsh said in a statement. “At a time when the economy and the real-estate market were on a downward trajectory, these defendants were not afraid to make a bad situation worse. In cases driven by greed, restitution to the victims is a critical part of the penalty paid by these offenders.”

Bates, Zuravel, Nathan and King were ordered to pay $8,596,595.24. The victims will receive approximated proportional payments on a rotating basis as the defendants make nominal payments, according to Smoak’s order.

Walter was separated from the others and ordered to pay $2,409,462.38.

The five defendants were sentenced in September, but Smoak had not ordered restitution until Tuesday following a hearing on the matter Jan. 17.

Bates, the only defendant to take his case to trial, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after a trial in which his codefendants described him as the scheme’s mastermind when they testified against him. Bates told The News Herald during his trial he had been set up by his more knowledgeable co-conspirators.

But prosecutor Gayle Littleton showed evidence that Bates reaped the lion’s share of the proceeds and spent them on fancy clothes, foreign sports cars and even designer coffins.

The other defendants received leniency for their cooperation. Zuravel, an attorney who admitted to falsifying documents, was sentenced to four years in prison.

Nathan, a mortgage broker who enlisted several members of his family to front fraudulent purchases and eventually went broke trying make payments on the homes they were supposed to be “straw buyers” of, was sentenced to just under three years in prison.

King, who falsified documents and routed the proceeds according to Bates or his companies, was sentenced to more than two years in prison.

Walter, who falsified documents, was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

Some of the loans the defendants secured were private, such as the $95,000 Marie Beamer loaned the group on the advice of her real estate agent. Beamer was 81 when she testified in May to losing her retirement savings when she sold her Bay Point home to the group in 2006.

Aside from Beamer and another couple who agreed to a private loan of more than $100,000, the victims in the case are primarily huge lenders like Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase.